Author | YA Urban Fantasy

Review: Battle Mage

This review does not contain spoilers! Please keep them out of the comments as well.

Part of the Free (Kindle) series.

Title: Battle Mage

Author: Peter A. Flannery

Stars: ★★

From the very first line, Flannery’s writing creates an odd distance between reader and the third person narrator. Words like “knew” and “felt” add further distance. The majority of the book suffers from lackluster descriptions more akin to reading a grocery list (or perhaps a medical record) than the action/adventure that Flannery’s blurb promised.

There are a number of missing commas. Anything mysterious or dangerous was black. Random, non-connected phrases appeared in paragraphs while other connected thoughts (sometimes single clauses) had lines separating them. Visually, not great.

I couldn’t get into this story at all, and it’s long – over 600 pages long. Every small error added up. Returning to review the Amazon page again, I was baffled by the number of 5-star reviews. It’s well-ranked, and it has an overwhelming number of 4-star and 5-star reviews, so perhaps, my issues with the basic editing and POV mechanics aren’t shared. Either way – it is free (now only on Kindle Unlimited), so while I’d recommend a strong pass on this one, maybe I’m just not seeing the diamond in all this rough.